Run Away! Run Away!

New Escapologist is a magazine for white-collar functionaries with escape on the brain.

We discuss practical exit strategies from demeaning day jobs, and celebrate the ‘flight’ part of ‘fight or flight’.

Each issue is a compendium of funny and practical essays on the subject of escape, seen through the compound eye of economics, travel, psychology, philosophy, humour, and the arts. We promote freedom, anarchy and the absurd.

Issue Eight: Staying In is our latest print edition and we recently made our entire catalogue available in electronic form.

We use Escapology as a metaphor for human freedom:

Houdini’s popularity as an escape artist came about during a time of technological and political revolution. It was during the 1900s that Ransom Eli Olds implemented the first mass production of marketable cars, Thomas Edison’s phonograph made a commodity out of music and the colonial expansion of Europe and America prompted the birth of the somewhat unpleasant political period known now as New Imperialism. Technologies and movements initially plugged as liberating would soon be discovered by thinkin’ types to be nasty, horrible traps designed only to placate, segment and enfeeble. When people become dependent upon companies or governments to entertain them, to transport them, to plan their days and to import their goods, they forget what it is to be free, alive and autonomous.

The work of Houdini and his contemporaries escaped the province of curiosity – that of conjuring and ventriloquism – and into the universe of metaphor.

Taken from An invitation to New Escapology.

New Escapologist is at once a collection of ideas on How to Live and a satirical exploration of modern urban life.

As well as print magazines, we like to host ‘escapades’. These have included New Escapologist launch parties at famous Glasgow venues The Arches and the CCA; a Zine Fair at the student-occupied Free Hetherington; a night of thought-provoking entertainment with Tom Hodgkinson of The Idler; and an evening of last-minute cabaret at the Edinburgh Festival. We also sell our magazine and conduct talks at ink-on-paper conventions like Expozine in Montreal.

Escapologist. Noun. (pronounced: es’cap·ol’o·gist). One who actively seeks to escape the imaginary manacles of modern life: work, debt, government, leisure industries, status and anxiety. – Urban Dictionary.

Praise for the magazine

“Foppish, irresponsible, and very needed” — Pat Kane, Thoughtland.

“Excellent publications which deserve a wide readership.” — Tom Hodgkinson, editor of the Idler and author of How to be Free.

“A brilliant magazine on the theme of escape (as a sane response to an insane situation).” — Brian Dean, Anxiety Culture.

“I have the latest New Escapologist on my bedside table. I go nowhere without it. And I always make sure New Escapologist is on it.” — Ian Macpherson, writer and comedian.

“A splendid publication. So cheerful and light, yet with a ninja-sharp intellect hiding just beneath the surface.” — Mr. Money Mustache

“We had to wait thirty years for someone to come up with an idea like this – an indie magazine about escape attempts!!! Next step: a whole Escapology Cult.” — Prof. Stanley Cohen, co-author of Escape Attempts.